We reserved a slot for a symposium and get-together at the c-base Hackerspace in Berlin. It will be an official partner event of transmediale.12. transmediale is an annual festival for media art and digital culture taking place for one week in February in Berlin, Germany.

Gathering protagonists from the DIY hacker movement who build spaces for people to make and build things, we will explore a phenomenon that exploded in 2007 and has been growing ever since. Be prepared for in-depth discussions on blinking electronics, tinkering, self-organization, spaces, hacking in places like Africa, Asia, America, or Europe, and a friendly outlook on things to come.

What to expect: We’ll start at 16:00 and make use of the afternoon at c-base, before an excellent line-up of DJs will finish off the gathering of the tribes. We want to put the emphasis on the exchange of ideas and no information overflow, but we want three talks or panels on the current state of the Hackerspace movement. If you have something to share, please send a short and sweet outline to [email protected]

See you in Berlin!

Minneapolis’ Hack Factory Visited by Think Tank

Think tank MN2020 visited Twin Cities Makers’ hackerspace, the Hack Factory to learn about the DIY and hackerspace movement, continuing the trend where these groups are starting to catch the public eye.

To “hack” is to deconstruct, figure out, and reinvent. The term has spawned a world-wide movement of engineers, programmers and hacker clubs dedicated to open-source learning and reinvention; sharing everything from wood-shop basics, to circuitry, to software. A central principal to the maker movement is keeping data and ideas open and accessible. Engineers and economists see the potential for both product development and job creation.

Local engineer and Minnesota 2020 Fellow Salman Mitha visited TC Maker in Minneapolis to explore the possible public policy implications for investing in the movement.

Model Rocketry Talk at Mesa, AZ’s HeatSync

This Thursday, January 19th, we’ll be hosting a talk on model rocketry by Geoffrey from the Superstition Spacemodeling Society. We will be going over the effects that modern technology has had on rocketry as a sport and a tool for teaching the next generations of engineers and scientists. Geoffrey has seven years of rocketry experience and has achieved the High Power Rocketry Level 3 rating, the highest NAR rating achievable and has competed nationally with the local club, who has been number one for six years straight.

After Geoffrey’s talk, Ryan will be going in to where the lab fits in to all of this. We have all of the tools in the space to make these model rockets from scratch, whether it’s 3D printed, or machined, so why not put them to use? It’s the perfect hobby for people of all ages and interests, what is cooler than making highly explosive things fly up in to the air?

Linux Workshop at Galway, Ireland’s 091 Labs

091 Labs will offer a Linux Workshop this Friday, January 20th at 7pm:

You want to learn Linux? Great! What you need is:

A laptop computer with enough hard disk space to install Linux.
A sense of self-worth and a desire to learn.
The fortitude to repartition your machine in order to install Linux.
We will be working with Ubuntu Linux 11.10.

3D Rendering Class at Philly’s Hive76

I’ll take you through the process of texturing, lighting, rendering, compositing, and post-processing to make a photo-realistic 3D render.

You’ll learn the ins and outs of the interface in Blender, a professional strength, free and open source program for 3D rendering, animation, modeling, texturing, compositing, and post processing.

“Site 3: it’s about being loud and burning things without getting in trouble”

Hi-ho, syber reporting here! One random Thursday in November, myself and Michelle-the-intern chatted with a couple of Site 3 members about what they were doing there. We didn’t warn anyone we were doing this, so there’s lots of activity and background noise, and as it turns out – that’s exactly what Site 3 is about.

Digital Electronics for Arduino Workshop at Louisville’s LVL1

We will build and program an electronic game and in the process learn LED’s, tri-color LED’s, pushbutton switches, speakers and Arduino programming. You will need to have an Arduino or an Arduino clone to participate in this workshop. You will also need to bring a laptop computer for programming your Arduino. We will show you how!